DANISH NAQATI
There is a general impression that the government in Kashmir is defunct. Everybody, conveniently seems to ignore the fact that the cabinet meets almost daily, though it used to do little work. Even if they did any work it was not well publicised. What if almost all the offices are locked down from the last almost three months. We see the government at the grass roots every day and every night in the shape of curfews and restrictions. Where government authority in Khakhi keeps an eye on every Mohalla, every house and every person living in the Valley.
The government is present and functioning through its police and the higher bureaucracy. In its latest move the government has ordered major shake up in the police hierarchy. Apart from changing and undoing some earlier decisions like appointing special Commissioner and a separate IGP for north Kashmir, the state government has punished at two high level police officers for the shoegate. The cabinet ordered the attachment of IGP (security) Ram Lubhaya and SSP (security) Rafiqul Hassan for the breach on the August 15 ceremony when a head constable threw a shoe at chief minister Omar Abdullah while he was taking the salute at the parade.
The earlier decision of appointing special commissioner and IGP for north Kashmir was revoked and the posts abolished. Taking such a major decision and revoking it within two months may point to a clear lack of vision or even a thought out policy but in no way means the government is not there. It takes decisions and in some cases revokes them but it works.
Another thing the government keeps a close guard on is the protest calendar issued by separatist every week. Apparently, the Omar government gets a copy of the protest calendar that is why it reacts to it, wholeheartedly. The government responds to Geelani’s every strike call by imposing curfews and restrictions. And they say the government is defunct. Yes, there is anarchy in Kashmir. Yes, government offices are locked down. But it can only be Kashmir where a government and anarchy go hand in hand. Where ‘elected people’s representatives’ can’t move in the streets, even with their heavily armed security guards, for the fear of being lynched by the people who they claim to represent.
The insensitivity of the government has been on display for quite some time now. From terming protestors as unruly to threatening them to ordering continuous curfews to taking arbitrary decisions, the government has done every possible unpopular thing. And they call it a popular government, strange! A reactive political dispensation lacking any vision cannot rule well. And Omar government is not. A government represented by men in Khaki can not.
